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Paul D. Devitt had started his car service in 2010 to earn extra cash for his family and help
keep drunken drivers off the road.

Since then, he had upgraded from the family’s 2001 Dodge Caravan to a black 2007 Chevrolet
Suburban. The business name had changed, too — from Hilliard Hometown Taxi to Black Car of
Columbus.

And he had started picking up customers through the on-demand car-service app Uber Black, which
launched in Columbus last fall.

Devitt, 49, was working on Tuesday night when he was robbed of his SUV, shot more than once and
left for dead in the Hayden Heights Mobile Home Park, 5501 Cosgray Rd. in Washington Township. A
passer-by called 911 around 7:40 p.m.

Investigators don’t know whether Devitt was on a call when he was killed, said Deputy Chief Rick
Minerd of the Franklin County sheriff’s office. They can’t find a call for him to provide service
to or from the trailer park.

The voicemail message on Devitt’s cellphone yesterday told customers that he was driving
exclusively through Uber. Devitt also had regular customers who called him directly for rides,
Minerd said. “He could have been called by any number of people asking for service.”

Investigators are asking anyone who sees the SUV, which has an Ohio tag of BLKCAR1, to call the
detective bureau at 614-525-3351.

Minerd was not sure whether Devitt had been robbed of anything else.

Devitt had been licensed as a livery driver in Columbus since Nov. 25, when he registered the
Suburban, according to the city’s license section. Uber Black drivers have to be registered livery
operators.

Representatives of Uber did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment yesterday.

Devitt, who lived in Prairie Township with his wife and children, started Hilliard Hometown Taxi
with a focus on suburban residents, giving rides home to those too drunk to drive.

In a
Dispatch story published in January 2012, he said he thought his efforts might have helped
reduce the number of drunken-driving arrests in the suburb; they had declined from more than 200 in
2007 to 176 in 2011.

“The majority of what I do is ferry people who’ve had too much to drink,” he said at the time. “
A great many of my regulars all have at least one DUI. And they all say, ‘Never again.’”

Wendy Devitt said her husband had gone to work at 5:30 p.m., a little more than two hours before
he was found dead.

“I’m sure he got out of the car to open the door for whoever it was, and what happened then, I
don’t know,” Mrs. Devitt told WBNS-TV (Channel 10).

“Whoever it is, whatever their motivation, it has now ruined our life,” she said. “We will never
get over it, and if it was just for a car, you could have had it.”